Day 52: Male and Female (369-373)


Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, you have made us male and female. You have made us co-heirs to your life. To your Divine Life. To the Grace that you offer to all human beings. We ask that you come and meet us with that Grace. We ask that you come meet us in our maleness. Come meet us in our femaleness. Come meet us in our humanity. Because you have made us different. And yet, at the same time, you have imprinted your Divine Image on every single one of us. And so we are equal. And yet, unique. And yet, complimentary. Lord, help us to appreciate and uphold our equality. Help us to appreciate and honor our complementarity. We ask this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen”


Scripture References & Reflections

- compiled by Andrew Adamany


Bible Translation - RSVCE


CCC 369 "Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator.240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the image of God". In their "being-man" and "being-woman", they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.”


Genesis 1:27 

“So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.”


Genesis 2:7

“then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being.”


Genesis 2:21–22

“So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22 and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.”


CCC 370 "In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.”


Isaiah 49:14–15 

“But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, 

my Lord has forgotten me.” 

15 “Can a woman forget her sucking child, 

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb? 

Even these may forget, 

yet I will not forget you.


Isaiah 66:13

“As one whom his mother comforts, 

so I will comfort you; 

you shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”


Psalm 141:2–3

“Let my prayer be counted as incense before thee, 

and the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice! 

3 Set a guard over my mouth, O Lord, 

keep watch over the door of my lips!”


Hosea 11:1–4 

“When Israel was a child, I loved him, 

and out of Egypt I called my son. 

2 The more I called them, 

the more they went from me; 

they kept sacrificing to the Baals, 

and burning incense to idols. 

3 Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk, 

I took them up in my arms; 

but they did not know that I healed them. 

4 I led them with cords of compassion, 

with the bands of love, 

and I became to them as one, 

who eases the yoke on their jaws, 

and I bent down to them and fed them.”


CCC 371 "God created man and woman together and willed each for the other. The Word of God gives us to understand this through various features of the sacred text. "It is not good that the man should be alone. I will make him a helper fit for him." None of the animals can be man's partner. The woman God "fashions" from the man's rib and brings to him elicits on the man's part a cry of wonder, an exclamation of love and communion: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." Man discovers woman as another "I", sharing the same humanity.”


Genesis 2:18–23 

“Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him.” 19 So out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. 20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper fit for him. 21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; 22 and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man. 23 Then the man said, 

“This at last is bone of my bones 

and flesh of my flesh; 

she shall be called Woman, 

because she was taken out of Man.”


CCC 372 "Man and woman were made "for each other" - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he created them to be a communion of persons, in which each can be "helpmate" to the other, for they are equal as persons ("bone of my bones. . .") and complementary as masculine and feminine. In marriage God unites them in such a way that, by forming "one flesh", they can transmit human life: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth." By transmitting human life to their descendants, man and woman as spouses and parents cooperate in a unique way in the Creator's work.”


Genesis 2:24–25 

“Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh. 25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.



CCC 373 "In God's plan man and woman have the vocation of "subduing" the earth as stewards of God. This sovereignty is not to be an arbitrary and destructive domination. God calls man and woman, made in the image of the Creator "who loves everything that exists", to share in his providence toward other creatures; hence their responsibility for the world God has entrusted to them.”


Genesis 1:28 

“And God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.”


Wisdom of Solomon 11:24 

“For thou lovest all things that exist, 

and hast loathing for none of the things which thou hast made, 

for thou wouldst not have made anything if thou hadst hated it.”